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Smith placed on waivers by Rangers
Defenseman has eight points in 44 games after signing four-year, $17.4 million contract with New York

"Everybody that's followed him since he's been here, there's no doubt that he has played better for us in the past and this year got off to a slow start," coach Alain Vigneault said. "We worked with him a number of different ways.

"At the end of the day this might be a little bit drastic here, but management and the coaches felt that this was the way to go for our team right now."

There is an inclination to let our imagination create a rationale. Reading AV's statement and note from mgmt, maybe this is simply part of a rebuild/retool/whateverthefuckyawannacallit.

The clue is in the first word, "Money"

My money says this is about the money (and rebuild). Now if a team wants to pick up the contract, put in a claim. The Rangers will use that money (3 years worth) to bring back Grabs instead. Or whatever their plan is for the cap space.

If he is not claimed he goes to the Pack and tries to improve. He/everybody gets the message. Either way it frees up a slot for a youngster to get some burn and mgmt to evaluate guys who should be near ready.

Really no surprise on this and yes is he staying up or going down. Sending him down would be a kick in the balls

The reality check is no one claimed him, thus going down to Hartford to fix his game is the only way he gets back up.

Obviously coming into Camp out of shape was a huge mistake. Beyond that, the only credible rumors I heard about Smith in the locker room was that he spoke out about the coach discouraging fighting. However the coaches have also been preaching to him about dumb penalties and dumb decisions and bluntly don't feel he has improved those things. Besides the penalties the dumb defensive decsions like not knowing when to NOT go deep offensively, puck decisions and positioning in our zone and defending entry.

He has a bunch of things to improve. Might as well join the Pack, they'll need the help. Until we hear more, it seems the staff wasn't seeing the improvement requested and once the rebuild was determined the possibility of his contract getting picked-up and the chance to evaluate a younger player likely sealed his fate.

That remark about fighting is likely true. Brooks mentioned it as well:

Plus, there must be an inspection of whether Vigneault’s undying belief in whistle-to-whistle, turn-the-other-cheek hockey has created a passive mentality among the Rangers. When Chris Kreider stood up for McDonagh after the captain was run from behind by Steven Stamkos in Tampa Bay in Game 6 of the 2015 conference finals, No. 20 was rebuked by the coach for picking up an additional two minutes. When Brendan Smith stood up for Tony DeAngelo in an imbroglio in L.A. with Trevor Lewis on Jan. 21, he was chastised for picking up a bad penalty.

This just fucking boils my blood. I was at the LA game. That was the most excitement I've seen at a Rangers game in three years. Of course the Rangers folded like a cheap lawn chair after that. You need to play with fucking emotion to win games. You just do.